JPH0147975B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to pleated casing stay articles including end closures of casing material itself, and also to methods and apparatus for manufacturing such articles. In particular, the present invention
The present invention relates to a casing article with an inserted and axially compressed end closure forming a closure of the casing material at one end of the casing stake or at one end of a support tube inside the casing stake.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Flexible tube pleated food casings are
It is widely used in the food industry to produce and process various cased processed foods such as frankfurters, sausages, etc. As a result, pleated casings, methods of making casing materials, methods of casing pleating, pleated tubular casing articles commonly referred to as stakes, and various methods and apparatus associated with the use of pleated casings to produce filled food products, etc. Many things are well known in this field. For example, shirred casings, shirring methods and apparatus are generally described in US Pat. No. 2,984,574. U.S. Pat. No. 3,115,668 describes a machine that repeats the process of filling and ligating pleated casing stakes to produce chain sausages or frankfurters. Recently, as described in U.S. Patent Application No. 363,851, large casing stakes have been developed for the purpose of providing compact stays that can be tightly compressed to increase the length of the casing folded to a constant stake length. It was proposed to install it on the support tube.

With the advent of automated machines for filling and/or ligating pleated food casings, the production speed of sausage-shaped products has increased greatly, as described, for example, in US Pat. No. 3,115,668. In an automatic filling operation, hollow pleated casing stakes are automatically and rapidly fed around the filling horn of a filling machine. The horn axially mounts the stake by extending through the bore of the hollow stake to its forward end. The horn then advances the stake into the chuck. The chuck grips the front end of the stake and rotates the stake around the horn at appropriate times during the filling operation to close the filled casings one after another in a chain.

In order for the horn to advance the stake into the chuck, the stake hole must be plugged at the forward end. With the hole thus plugged, the filling horn can push the plug from inside the stake until the front end of the stake is firmly gripped by the chuck. At the beginning of the filling cycle, the filling horn continues to advance within the chuck and it pushes the closure out of the hole in the pleated stay and scrunch part of the casing from the front end of the stay or from the closure. do.

Another function of the closure is to seal the casing end and to restrict the flow of the emulsion being filled during the early stages of the filling operation and prior to the formation of the first filling in the chain. It is to prevent it. In this regard, the emulsion forces the casing of the closure into the linkage, so that the flow of emulsion out of the casing is restricted until the first fill is formed, and the emulsion is then disposed of in the subsequent fill as described below. 1. In the recovery operation of the filler contents, they can be easily extracted and recovered.

Providing a casing stake with a closure formed at one end can generally be accomplished more uniformly and economically during manufacture of the pleated casing stake than during use of the casing. To this end, various types of casing closures and methods of forming such closures are known in the art. For example, U.S. Patent No. 3162893
The No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1, 2006, describes a casing end closure device which engages the end pleats of a pleated casing and rotates to twist the casing tightly on itself to form a closure having a tie-like neck. The other end closure is formed by grasping and twisting the end pleats of the casing as described in US Pat. No. 3,882,252 and Canadian Patent No. 813,838. The end closures can also be formed inside the hollow stakes, or they can be formed once outside the stakes and later folded into the stakes. for example,
U.S. Pat. No. 3,274,005 discloses a pleated casing with an end that is twisted closed on the outside of the hollow stake and retracted accordingly into the rear casing bore. U.S. Pat. No. 3,383,222 discloses a pleated casing having a compression plug-type end closure that is inserted into the front end of the stay. Here, the closure is constructed by pulling a strand of casing laterally across a hole in the stake to form a barrier, folding the strand into one end of the casing stake, and then inserting it into the other end of the casing stake. The folded strand is formed by pressing the folded strand against a fixed surface with a plunger and compressing it in the axial direction, thereby forming the folded strand into a sealing shape. Because the formation of the shield in this patent requires asymmetric stretching of the pleated casing across the stake bore, the resulting seal is also asymmetric with respect to the axis of the stake bore.

In U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,865,954, 3,914,447 and 4,070,729, a hollow casing stay with an end closure and a method and apparatus for forming an end closure are disclosed, in which the closure is inserted into a hole in a progressively twisted pleated stay. This is a tightly packed nodule.
The closure is formed by twisting the end pleats of the pleated stays about rods inserted into holes in the pleated stays. US Patent No.
No. 3,892,869 discloses a floating end closure formed within a pleated stay from a quantity of casing material that is folded into the bore of the pleated stay and compressed axially. The resulting closure is asymmetrical with respect to the stay hole.

In U.S. Pat. No. 4,075,938, the end closure is
The pleated portion of the casing is formed within the casing stake by first wrapping it to form a wall portion across the hole in the stake. A winding mechanism, including a rotating mandrel, is advanced into the bore of the casing stake. This advances the wall section into the hole and simultaneously winds the shirring casing around the rotating mandrel to form a generally cylindrically twisted or radially wound section following the advancing wall section.

Another twisted plug-in closure was unveiled in Germany.
Disclosed in P29 26543.8. Here, the winding mechanism is moved axially away from the ends of the stakes as the stakes rotate so that the casing material is twisted 20 to 30 times without tearing it. The torsional closure of casing material formed by these rotations is then pushed axially into the stay bore.

Other end closures formed in pleated stays by crimping the ends of the stays are disclosed in U.S. Pat.
No. An end closure formed outside the hole in the stay and inserted later is disclosed in U.S. Pat.
3942568; 3942569 and 3971301.

Other auger-type end closures have been proposed that are twisted, folded, and axially compressed.

In summary, hitherto no end closure has been disclosed which is made from symmetrically folded, axially compressed and interleaved casing material. Additionally, no end closure has been disclosed in the art for use with pleated casing stakes mounted to support tubes. In view of the industrial importance of such casing stakes, symmetrical folded end closures and methods of producing such end closures are highly desirable.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the invention to provide a symmetrical fold formed by symmetrically folding and axially compressing pleated material located at either end of a pleated stake or in a support tube inside a casing stake. It is an object of the present invention to provide a pleated stay casing article having a shaped end closure. Another object of the invention is to provide a method and apparatus for manufacturing the above-described casing article.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In a first aspect, the present invention provides a hollow tubular pleated casing stake article having an open end and a closed end, the closed end causing the casing material itself to be compressed at the closed end. To provide a casing stay article, comprising an end closure body which is folded into a hole of the stake and compressed in the axial direction to form a symmetrical seal, and the end closure body is comprised only of a tightly compressed pleat structure. do. A hollow tubular pleated casing stake can also be attached to the support tube and the end closure formed inside the support tube. The hollow tubular pleated casing stake and support tube may constitute a cored dense casing article. The end closure may be vented;
It can also be made without ventilation holes.

The present invention also provides a method of making a casing stake article with an end closure that includes symmetrically folding a pleated portion of casing material within a hole in the stake and compressing it axially using vacuum action; Provide equipment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Referring to the drawings, FIGS. 1-6 illustrate one method of forming closures useful in the present invention.

FIG. 1 shows a pleated casing stake 13 attached to a support tube 15 which is a tubular core. A hollow rod 23 with a sealing means 11 is inserted from the rear end of the support tube. The support tube 15 can act as a filling horn during subsequent filling operations. A flange 17 is formed at the end of the support tube 15. The pleated casing part 19 beyond the periphery of the flange 17 is stretched.

It should be understood that the support tube 15 as shown in FIG. 1 is optional and that the end closure can be formed as described herein without the need for a support tube.

The pleated casing stake 13 may be a "cored high density stake" as described in U.S. Patent Application No. 363,851. The cored dense casing article consists of a support tube as a core and a pleated casing mounted thereon and compressed to a high compression ratio of at least about 100 and a compression efficiency of at least about 0.50. Such articles provide a casing stake with improved structural stability and strength as compared to conventional casing stakes and incorporate additional fill length into a constant pleated casing length.

FIG. 2 shows the hollow rod 23 inserted from the rear end of the pleated casing 13 through its front end into the casing pleat extension 19. The hollow rod 23 is provided with a plurality of holes 25. Hole 25 cooperates with hollow rod 23 and vacuum source 12 communicating with hollow rod 23 to provide sealing means 21 such as O-rings, elastic bands, adhesives, mechanical fasteners, pins in the hollow rod, etc. After placing a part of the casing pleat part 19 in close contact with a part of the hollow rod 23 using a vacuum cleaner, the casing pleat part 19 is evacuated. Alternatively, the sealing means 21 may be provided by the operator of the device manually pinching the end of the casing portion 19 with his or her fingers. Furthermore, the sealing means 2
1 can be mounted on the rod as shown in FIG. 2 or off the rod end. The hollow rod 23 is provided with sealing means 21 on the front end and sealing means 11 on the rear end so that evacuation of the casing part 19 can be achieved.

Referring now to FIG.
It is shown fully evacuated by the suction action created by vacuum means 12 in cooperation with 1 and 21 and collapsed into contact with hollow rod 23.

FIG. 4 shows the hollow rod 23 being retracted through the front end of the pleated casing 13 and the casing pleat extension 19 being retracted or folded into the support tube 15.

After stopping the application of vacuum to the hollow rod 23, the hollow rod 23 and the sealing means 11 are withdrawn from the casing and the sealing means 21 is also removed from the casing part 1.
It is removed from 9. This is the state shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG.
It is inserted within 5. The ram 27 cooperates with a stop 29 as a fixing surface to compress the folded casing pleat extension to create a symmetrically folded and axially compressed end closure 20 for the pleated casing 13. form. The end closure body 20 has a sixth
A sectional view is shown in FIG. 7 as a cross section taken along line cc in the figure.

FIG. 8 shows a further embodiment of the invention, in which a hollow rod 23 with a fitting 31 is inserted into the shirred casing part 19 towards the front end of the shirred casing 13. A portion of the crimped casing part is placed in a sealed state with a portion of the hollow rod 23 by means of the sealing means 21. Thereafter, the crimped casing part 19 and the support tube 15 are evacuated through the hole 25 in the hollow rod 23, which cooperates with a vacuum source (not shown). Thereafter, as shown in FIG.
The sealing means 21 is released when it is retracted symmetrically into the interior and the stop 31 comes into contact with the casing at the flange 17.

As shown in FIG. 10, a ram 33 is inserted through the support tube 15 at the rear end of the pleated casing 13 to remove the axial compression end closure 22 for the pleated casing from the retracted pleated stretched casing section. Form. This end closure body 22 is
It is shown in FIG. 11 as a cross section taken along line dd in FIG. 10.

In contrast to the end closure 20 of FIG. 7, the end closure 22 shown in FIG. Equipped with: This vent 28 provides easy evacuation of gases as the meat emulsion is fed into the pleated casing article at the beginning of the filling operation.

Figures 12 to 14 show the casing fold extension part 1.
9 shows another means of providing locking to the rod 67. FIG. 12 illustrates the use of mechanical clamps 77 to secure casing pleats 19 to rods 67. FIG. 13 shows the casing part 19
An adhesive coated piece 81, such as glue, is shown for releasably attaching the rod 67 to the rod 67. Figure 14 shows the rod 67 for fixing the casing part 19 to the rod 67.
The use of a needle 85 attached to the is shown.

The invention is not to be limited by the above-described method of producing the end closure of the invention. In addition to the above, mechanical, chemical, or fluid pressure locking methods may be used.

EXAMPLE A pleated casing stake article with an end closure of the present invention was made as follows using the process of Figures 1-6 above.

Size 25 (inflated diameter: approx. 0.81 inch, wall thickness approx. 0.001 inch)
1/4 inch diameter x
A hollow vacuum rod measuring 2 feet long was inserted. The vacuum rod had 24 1/16 inch diameter holes near one end of it. The open ends of the casing sections adjacent these holes were closed to facilitate the application of a vacuum into the casing pleats. A vacuum pump connected to the opposite end of the vacuum rod was turned on and the shirred casing section was evacuated.

After evacuation, the crimped casing portion was folded into the stake by pulling the vacuum rod into the stake. At this point, the vacuum was removed and the vacuum rod was removed from the folded casing section and the stay hole. Thereafter, the ram was inserted into the stake hole at the end of the stake opposite the end where the vacuum rod was inserted, and the stop was placed against the closed tube end of the stake. The ram was pushed toward the stop, thereby compressing the folded and pleated casing portion to form an end closure.

This pleated casing stake article with the newly formed end closure is then manufactured in a conventional manner by mounting the stake in a frankfurter filling machine and filling the casing with sausage emulsion until the entire stake has been used. It was used to fill sausage emulsion in the method.

The first filler in the chain was typically too small for such a filling operation and was not used as a product as the meat emulsion was squeezed out and recovered, but subsequent fillers were It had acceptable quality for industrial use.

In this specification, the term "pleat-stretched portion" includes both the case where the pleats are once created and the case where the pleats are created without pleats from the beginning.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1-6 are illustrations sequentially illustrating the steps of a method for manufacturing a casing stake article with end closures according to the present invention. FIG. 7 is a sectional view of the article taken along line cc in FIG. 5. 8th to 1st
FIG. 0 is an explanatory diagram showing the sequential steps of another manufacturing method. FIG. 11 is a cross-sectional view of the article taken along line dd in FIG. 10. Figures 12 to 14 are
FIG. 3 is an illustration showing three different means of achieving the locking step as a step in the method according to the invention; 13... Casing stick, 15... Support tube, 17... Flange, 19... Creased casing portion, 21, 11... Sealing means, 23... Hollow rod, 25... Hole, 12... Vacuum source, 27...
... Ram, 29, 31 ... Stop (fixed surface), 28
...Vent.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A hollow tubular pleated casing stake article having an open end and a closed end, the closed end folding the casing material itself into the hole of the stake at the closed end. A hollow tube-shaped pleated casing stake article, characterized in that it contains an end closure body which is compressed in the axial direction and is a symmetrical seal, and the end closure body is composed only of a tightly compressed pleat structure. 2. A hollow tubular pleated casing stake article according to claim 1, wherein the hollow tubular pleated casing stake is attached to a support tube and the end closure is formed within the support tube. 3. A hollow tubular pleated casing stake article according to claim 2, wherein the hollow tubular pleated casing stake and the support tube constitute a cored high-density casing article. 4. A hollow tube-shaped pleated casing stake article according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a vent hole is formed in the end closure. 5. A hollow tubular pleated casing stake article according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the end closure comprises a compressed pleat structure of one or two layers of tubular folded casing material. 6. A method of manufacturing a hollow tubular pleated casing stay article having an open end and a closed termination end and having an end closure of a tightly compressed pleat structure at the closed termination end, the method comprising: (a) having an open end; (b) providing a hollow tubular pleated casing stay with a casing pleat extension at the end to be closed; (c) inserting a hollow rod having at least one vent hole forming a casing stake into the casing stake pleat section via either end of the casing stake; (c) at the open end of the pleat section; forming a first seal between the pleated portion and the hollow rod using a sealing means; and (d) forming a second seal between the open end of the pleated casing stake and the hollow rod. (e) evacuating at least a portion of the crimped portion through the hollow rod vent hole using vacuum means to bring the crimped portion into close contact around the hollow rod insertion portion; and (f) vacuum. moving the lower hollow rod into the casing stake hole to draw at least a portion of the folded portion that is tightly fitted around the hollow rod insertion portion into the casing stake to form a symmetrical casing fold; (g) placing a fixed surface adjacent to the closing side of said casing stake; (h) releasing the vacuum applied by the vacuum means; (i) placing said casing fold against said fixed surface; compressing the portions to form an end closure of a tightly compressed pleated structure. 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the hollow rod has a number of radial holes. 8. The method of claim 6, further comprising removing the hollow rod from the casing stake after step (h) to form a ventless end closure. 9. The method of claim 6, further comprising retaining the hollow rod within the casing stake after step (h) to form a vented end closure. 10. A method according to any one of claims 6 to 9, wherein the pleated casing stake is attached to the support tube and the end closure is formed inside the support tube. 11. The method of claim 10, wherein pleated casing stakes are used in combination with support tubes to form cored dense casing articles. 12. The method of claim 6, wherein the sealing means is selected from O-rings, elastic bands, adhesives, mechanical clamps, pins in rods, and combinations thereof. 13. The method of claim 6, wherein the first seal is provided by manually grasping the pleated portion. 14. The method of claim 6, wherein the fixing surface is a stop. 15. The method according to claim 6, wherein the compression means is a plunger. 16. Apparatus for manufacturing a hollow tubular pleated casing stake article having an open end and a closed end and having an end closure of a compressed pleat structure in close contact at the closed end, comprising: (a) a pleated casing; a hollow rod supported in alignment with the aperture of the casing stake and having at least one vent hole forming a passage from the inner surface to the outer surface and movable along the aperture of the casing stake; (b) in said hollow rod; vacuum means in communication; (c) inserting said hollow rod into a pleated section of a casing stake and using said vacuum means to evacuate at least a portion of said pleated section through said hollow rod hole to remove the pleats; By bringing the stretched portion into close contact around the hollow rod insertion portion and moving the hollow rod under vacuum into the casing stake hole, at least a portion of the stretched portion that is in close contact around the hollow rod insertion portion is placed into the casing stake. (d) control means for controlling the movement and stopping of said hollow rod and the application and release of vacuum means for retraction to form a symmetrical casing fold; (e) means for compressing said casing fold to form an end closure of a tightly compressed pleated structure; A casing stake manufacturing apparatus having an end closure including a ram means and a stop means. 17. Claim 16 in which the hollow rod has sealing means slidably mounted therealong.
Apparatus described in section. 18. The device of claim 16, wherein the sealing means is selected from O-rings, elastic bands, adhesives, mechanical clamps, pins in rods, and combinations thereof.